Slab!

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(1987-1991) Nothing this band did before prepares you for Descension. 'Slab' just about sums up this record. Tunnel of Love, the opener, opens with a burst of white noise, a whirlwind of ominous guitar, sampled to sound like no other guitar you've ever heard. This is a statement of intent and from hereon in, there's no let up - like the soundtrack to the scariest movie you've never seen. Undriven Snow melds a discordant two note guitar intro with a surprisingly melodic vocal, the bass bucking and warping, threatening to take the whole song down some dark alley and give it a damn good kicking. Think of Descension as an industrial jazz record with all the stops pulled out. This is dark stuff, drony, dubby, loud as hell. This isn't lo-fi - put this band in a 48 track digital studio and they wouldn't make any sense. Slab need that dirty, scuzzed out sound, that rough around the edges feel - they rip into every song as if their recording time is on a meter. Everything sounds urgent, impassioned - Dolores is a huge stand out track, at once both paranoid and immense, the hushed verse giving way to monstrous beats, hesitant horns punctuating a fierce bass line. Improvisation is high on the agenda on tracks such as Dr Bombay and Moosleand, where Slab slip effortlessly slip into loungecore, improvising effortlessly around a skittery piano and erratic beats - the sound of a band confident enough to know that they can get away with this and still make it compelling. Even the way in w